Recent years have observed, along with enhanced performances of vehicles, strong demands for enhancement in traveling performances of pneumatic tires, such as a straight-going performance as an ability to go straight, a lane changeability as an ability to move from an ongoing lane to another lane, and a cornering performance as an ability to turn.
To respond to such demands, various proposals have been made. For example, a pneumatic tire has been disclosed (Japanese Patent Application Laying-Open Publication No. Sho57-147901), which has in a section in a tire-width direction a gap in radius of curvature between an inner side when vehicle-mounted and an outer side when vehicle-mounted.
The above-noted pneumatic tire has an enhanced traveling performance. However, due to the gap in radius of curvature between inner side when vehicle-mounted and outer side when vehicle-mounted, it has different road surface contact pressures between the inner side when vehicle-mounted and the outer side when vehicle-mounted. Therefore, with resultant occurrences of lopsided wear, the tire life has been shortened, as a problem.
The present invention is made in view of such points. It therefore is an object of the invention to provide a pneumatic tire with an enhanced traveling performance, in particular of lane changeability as well as of cornering performance, allowing for a suppression of lopsided abrasion.